Features

It’s burning up more and more by the second. The bright lights blind you, but you don’t want to place the eye protectors across your eyelids in fear of leaving spots or an uneven tone on your face. You lie there, completely at peace with music playing above your head, outside the box. Twelve minutes pass, the lights come down and immediately, you feel a rush of cool air as the heat vanishes. As you’re getting dressed, you catch a glance of yourself in the mirror, let out a sigh and smile, thinking it’s all worth it. Even in the early weeks of spring, you’re magically walking around with a sun-kissed tan as if you just came back from the Bahamas. Fact check: that invigorating feeling of confidence may not last as long as the chemicals in your body will.

Indoor tanning is said to be as danger as it a luxury for people. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, more than one million people tan in tanning salons. Moreover, 70 percent of patrons are women aged 16 to 29, ages that include college students.

Melanie Ratajczak, a sophomore education and spanish major, has been tanning indoors for three years and believes she has become addicted to the way she looks with a tan. “Initially, I started to get a base tan before vacation. Naturally my skin is pale, so a base tan helps in order to avoid sun poisoning.”

A frequent customer at Beach Bum Tanning Salon for their “reasonable prices,” Ratajczak explains she normally tans on level one, the lightest and weakest level, in 15 minutes intervals. She says she also goes tanning to relieve stress and insists it helps with acne breakouts and covers up scarring.

Meet Kathy Maloney, Director of Health Services at the University

For Kathy Maloney, Director of Health Services, it has been 11 years of transforming students from adolescence to adulthood in terms of their health.

She’s cared for patients withdrawing from heroin, struggling from rape, sick with the stomach bug, and facing a variety of physical and mental health problems. She says, “We have had it all. We never really know what comes through the door.”

However, there is one event that Maloney said absolutely takes the cake.

She describes it as the “Pinewood Illness.” “A few years back, two girls [residents of Pinewood Hall at the time] came into the office with the most horrible looking throats. Red, swollen, horrible looking. Then, they started to break out in rashes all over. Itchy, itchy, itchy rashes. We could not figure out what it was. Then all of a sudden, other people on the same floor of Pinewood started having similar symptoms. And before you know it, it was almost the entire floor. We didn’t know if it was something in the floors, or something in the vents. The Department of Health was here and Facilities Management did testing of the vents.”

Everything seemed to be better when people were not on that floor in Pinewood, Maloney remembers. “People would get better when they went home, and got worse when they came back. Then we started to do a diagram,” she explains, tracing a chart with her finger on her desk. “We plotted out the rooms, and what happened was the girls in the center room had the worst symptoms, and as you went further out, those girls had less symptoms. And no one could figure out what was going on.”

What Fuels Our Fascination With Celebrities?

What do you see when you walk through the checkout aisle at any grocery store? You are bombarded with tabloid magazine upon tabloid magazine with the face of a Kardashian plastered on the front cover. Although we would like to think that we have the willpower to turn our heads as we impatiently wait for the cashier to finally reach us in line, the truth of the matter is that some people give in to their curiosity and pick up the occasional Us Weekly or People magazine. What is it that draws us to celebrities and makes us incapable of completely ignoring them?

“Many members of the general American public are intrigued by the lives of celebrities for a variety of reasons,” said Mary Harris, public relations professor. “The media, at times, glorifies the rise and fall of famous individuals, including actors, singers, reality television personalities, athletes, politicians, and talk show hosts. Average citizens may be intrigued by the idea of the unique and almost unrealistic lifestyles of some of these celebrities.”

Oftentimes, people look to celebrities to be the trendsetters. Although the Oscars are meant to be an evening to honor the great works in the film industry, most of us only watch the red carpet to see what Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Lopez is wearing.

Those who make it through the ceremony itself are more interested in which celebrity did a wardrobe change, who is making his or her first public outing with a new significant other or which celebrity the host is going to offend first.

It’s that time of year again: Spring Break has ended and summer is around the corner. The birds are chirping, the trees are green and little string bikinis are scattered in the display windows once more. At this point in the year, one might think it is time to hit the gym, but no; students are heading to CVS to pick up the latest and greatest diet pill to hit the market, such as Hydroxycut and Trimspa.

Mary Lou Dalessandro, a Nurse Practitioner at the University, said, “Because obesity is an important health problem in this country, the desire to become thin is often a primary goal of college students. However, being thin and being healthy are not often the same. Many students turn to over-the-counter diet pills to achieve quick results.”

In some cases, diet pills are just the trick to lose that extra winter weight students are carrying around. Alex Cohen, a graduate student at the University, has taken diet pills and supplements for several years now. “I started taking Xenadrine to lose the small percentage of body fat that I had left. As a result I am now a personal trainer at the New York Sports Club. Without Xenadrine, I’m not sure I could have sculpted my abs enough. It was worth the risk of experiencing side effects,” said Cohen.

However, these little caffeine capsules do not always work so well. Kayla Nennecke, senior at Seton Hall University, knows all about the diet pill hype. “Last year I wasn’t quite ready for the summer so I decided to take Hydroxycut, which my friend had recommended,” she said.

But Nennecke soon discovered that the side effects written on the side of the box are not just there for decoration. “After taking the pills for about three days, my heart felt like it was fluttering in my chest. I decided to read the label and saw that increased heart rate was, in fact, a side effect,” she said. According to Substance Awareness Coordinator, Suanne Schaad, increased heart rate and blood pressure are only two of many side effects. “Some of the most common side effects are dry mouth, sleeplessness, headache, back pain, constipation, nausea, dizziness, anxiety and depression,” said Schaad.

The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Students

They are everywhere: walking zombies roaming the halls on their way to class in a trance-like haze. They are easy to spot, sporting heavy bags under their eyes, hair askew and wardrobe disheveled as if they got dressed with the leftover clothes scattered across their bedroom floor. Many can relate to this feeling, or appearance, because lack of sleep can affect anyone. Cramming for exams, staying up late to finish a paper due the next morning, or just having too much on the mind can affect sleep. If not kept in check, sleep deprivation can lead to many effects that can harm you in the long run if not taken care of when they first appear.

Sleep deprivation can be brought on by many differing factors. Kathy Maloney, Director of Health Services, said that some of the contributing factors are overuse of stimulants (caffeine-related drinks especially taken late in the day/night) anxiety and depression, and stress. Many of these indicators are evident in students’ lives. It is easy to point out the victims of lack of sleep in many classes as well. Maloney said that some other effects of sleep deprivation are falling asleep in class, irritability, bloodshot eyes, bags under the eyes, and inability to focus.

According to webmd.com, the average adult needs about seven to eight hours of sleep a night, though some can function on less. Many students view the weekend as a chance to recuperate and get caught up on missed hours of shut-eye. Maloney said, “There is a misconception that eventually people can ‘catch up’ on their sleep at some point in the future. College students especially perceive themselves and their health as invincible and that nothing bad is going to happen to them despite their lifestyle choices.”

Experiment Shows the Speed of Light Cannot Be Exceeded

Last September, an international collaboration of 160 physicists from eleven countries at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, reported to have clocked subatomic particles known as neutrinos break the universally ubiquitous threshold of the speed of light, which is approximately 300 million meters per second.

In this experiment, known collectively as the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-Tracking Apparatus (Opera), the particles were fired a distance of 454 miles from an underground research laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland to another in Gran Sasso, Italy at a reported 60 nanoseconds faster than the cosmic speed limit postulated by Albert Einstein in 1905.

This miniscule result had inundated seas of skepticism among the world’s scientific community. For if these results had held true, Einstein’s theory of relativity would have been directly contradicted, bellowing pretty much a Hurricane Katrina at the entire foundation the house of modern physics is built upon.

To the delight of the aforementioned skeptics, a research team led by Nobel Laureate physicist Carlo Rubbia reported recently that neutrinos do not, in fact, travel faster than the speed of light, reassuring Einstein’s theory that nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, according to the New York Times.

In response to this upturn, Shivam Patel, a sophomore biology major, said he was “astounded by the scientists today. I really thought they could prove neutrinos to be faster than the speed of light and prove Albert Einstein wrong.”

An Inside Look from a Student Who is Allergic to Peanuts

Imagine having to walk through each day of your life worrying that anything you eat could end your life. Every time you go food shopping, you have to read the ingredients and make sure whatever it is you are allergic to is not found in that product. Imagine going out on a first date and you have to have the waiter check with the chef to make sure the food they are cooking does not contain the allergen as well. This is a small example of what it is like to live your life with a food allergy.

According to the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN), 15 million people across the country have food allergies. Some of these allergies people are born with, but they can outgrow them. However for others, there are certain food allergies that are so severe that they are often lifelong. The one that I fall victim too is a peanut allergy, which according to the FAAN is one of the allergies known for being lifelong.

I became aware I had this allergy when I was just ninemonths- old. My mother gave me peanut butter on a Ritz cracker, but instead of eating it I thought it would be a great idea to rub the contents of the cracker all over my face. When I did this, I broke out in hives. My mother called the doctor and gave me Benadryl and the reaction subsided. Had I eaten that cracker I most likely would have died.

It wasn’t until years later that doctors’ then told my mother that I had a severe peanut allergy and that I was going to have to take several precautions throughout my life when it came to eating food.

A Bond With the Artist is Just as Important as the Tattoo

Tommy Hare lies on the bench while tattoo artist Jason McGrady shades dimension into an angel’s wings. The ink on his skin is a reminder of his source of strength during his son’s battle with cancer. His entire left forearm, covered in shades of black and grey, represent’s Saint Michael and the word “Believe.”

Hare’s son was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare form of cancer mostly found in infants and young children, when he was just six-anda- half-years-old. Hare explained that prayer helped his family endure the difficulty of dealing with his son’s illness. “We always believed that he would make it,” he said. Now, his boy is a cancer-free nine-year-old.

Getting such a large tattoo is not a one-time sitting and it requires hours in the chair. The meaning of tattoos penetrates more than skin deep. People often get tattoos that represent or express something of significance in their life, but the ink is not the only thing that is meaningful. The tattoo artist behind the art can be just as important to the customer. Artists and their regular customers build a relationship in and out of the shop that keeps the tattooed coming back and the artists earning a living. Artists work hard to make their customers happy and take special care of the familiar faces.

Hare and McGrady’s relationship did not begin at Adrenaline in Brick where McGrady has worked for the last 10 years. They met on the golf course. “There’s not a lot of heavily tattooed people running around the golf course,” McGrady said with a smile. The two hit it off after spending hours together playing on the green. “He ended up coming in and getting a bunch of work.”

The Harbor Seals of Point Pleasant

The mackerels were flying back and forth, bubbles were being blown and fins were flapping. Then, I got a kiss from a harbor seal; a soft, moist velvet kiss on my forehead. So excuse me if I seem like a sucker for these guys, because I am.

But my story doesn’t start with the kiss. It starts at Sandy Hook on a January morning during low tide. A warm day for that time of year, the sun seemed to rise just for me, following my footsteps as I walked towards the sand bar on the bay side of Sandy Hook. T he sunbeams warmed me and I left my jacket unbuttoned.

New Jersey’s beaches in the winter are beautiful, unbeknownst to most local residents or seasonal tourists. Sandy Hook is no exception. While the “bennies” are back home in the north, hundreds of seals take to the sandbars and seas. The most common species is the Western Atlantic Harbor seal, but grey, harp, and hooded seals are also seen. All of these are categorized under the mammal subheading known as pinniped, which means “fin-footed” in Latin.

As I approached the sandbar a couple hundred meters away, I saw dozens of seals sunbathing. From afar, they looked like large pieces of driftwood casually scattered on the small, temporary piece of land. Even from this far away, I could hear their grunting sounds. A few of them were scooting around, only as graceful as a creature can be when using fins in place of legs to carry their blubbering bellies. I t’s obvious t hat t hey a re more suited for life in the water, but when basking, they look more than content, their bodies shaped like a banana, head and tail raised. Seeing 40 of these banana-shaped sunbathers is quite a sight. T heir sizes, colors and patterns are varied, making it possible to differentiate individuals.

Ekso-Bionics Brings Freedom to Wheelchair-Bound

Most of us took our first steps as toddlers as we were watched excitedly by our parents in the comfort of our homes. As the days passed, we gained experience and walked upright, pushed our chests out and marveled at our own accomplishment.

As the days turned to years, some lost that privilege and were told by the doctor that we could not walk again. Car accidents, construction accidents surfing accidents, and skiing accidents among a myriad of others have robbed them of the freedom of walking free.

Recently, that freedom has not only been restored, but has been revamped like never before.

A collaboration of professionals in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, programming and medicine in the Californiabased

Ekso Bionics, has given people in wheelchairs a second opportunity at taking their first steps. Ekso is a bionic exoskeleton that allows paraplegics to stand up from their wheelchairs and walk upright. Armed with four motors and fifteen electrical sensors, the battery powered and ready-to-wear device allows the patient, according to eksobionics.com, to walk over ground with a natural gait, assisted by advanced balance and positioning systems. In only five minutes, the patient can transfer from his or her wheelchair to the device with minimal assistance, and on their own with experience.

As students move up in their college careers, many develop a desire to live off-campus. While many look forward to making the transition from on-campus to off, there are responsibilities and things to keep in mind that go into living on your own.

Finding a Rental

There are multiple things to consider when looking for a rental. Numerous and varied housing options are offered to students and those should determine what type of housing they want before contacting landlords and realtors.

One of the options is to live in an apartment building; which there are many large and small apartment buildings in the Monmouth University area. Apartment buildings generally contain studio to two bedroom units. Houses are another option where you can find single, two, and three bedroom houses in areas surrounding the University.

“I like living in a house because there is more space to move around,” said junior David DeSimone.

You may also find apartments or houses that may already have existing tenants that are looking for a roommate. Some people choose to work in exchange for room and board. This may require 10 to 15 hours of services such as childcare, eldercare, tutoring, housekeeping, chauffeuring, and general maintenance being exchanged for room and board.

Reviewing your finances is another good step to look into where you want to live. It is important to decide what is feasible and affordable for you to live as well as thinking about your expenses such as food and gas.